


The Last Good Day

by LindsayBay



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 04:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12904038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindsayBay/pseuds/LindsayBay
Summary: Post-zombie apocalypse, Merle wants drugs or alcohol to help him obliterate his memories of his life and family before





	The Last Good Day

**Author's Note:**

> When I picked ‘Zipper’ for the ABC’s of Merle Dixon Challenge on Tumblr, I suppose I had the perfect prompt for smut, but I ended up going in a different, cleaner, angstier direction. I figure a guy like Merle would have several children by different mothers. The fact that he carried around antibiotics for STDs shows that he wasn’t the best at remembering to, um, wrap that rascal.

_Dad, can you zip me up?_  


It just figured that it took a goddamned zombie apocalypse to get Merle Dixon to finally go sober. He’d been drinking and smoking and snorting and swallowing things since high school. At least he had never gone as far as shooting up.

He had tried to go straight. So many times, he’d tried. Three days sober wasn’t too bad. At five days, the memories started crowding in. Memories led to regrets. Regrets led to pain. Pain led to washing down Oxys with whiskey. Oxys and whiskey led to more things to regret and the occasional trip to the ER.

Merle surveyed the main street of a small, deserted town. The drugstore’s windows were all smashed, and its merchandise was strewn all over the aisles and into the street. The liquor store was completely burned out. ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the LORD’ was spray-painted on its blackened shell. There was no oblivion to be found here.

_Dad, can you zip me up?_

The one thing in his life that Merle never regretted was Starla. She wasn’t planned, and he and her mother were barely speaking to each other by the time she was born, but she was his princess from the first time that he held her. He could never feel close to his sons; his relationship with his own father seemed to taint every interaction with them. But his only daughter he could love with his whole heart. And she loved him back unconditionally, no matter how much of a screw-up he was.

Merle was almost always a screw-up.

_Dad, can you zip me up?_

Starla was never allowed to visit when Merle was in jail or prison, except once.

When she was in tenth grade, she suddenly stopped eating. “See if you can talk some sense into her. She always listens to you, God only knows why,” her mother had said.

Merle took Starla fishing, something they had shared together since she was seven. He was ridiculously proud of how she wasn’t at all squeamish about putting the worm on the hook and gutting her catch. “Why ain’t you eatin’, sweetie? You got your momma all worried.”

Starla’s face crumbled, and she began to bawl. It turned out that a senior boy had been picking on her. When she tried to eat in the school cafeteria, he got all of his friends to make pig noises. He followed her down the halls yelling ‘BOOM BOOM BOOM’. He had even started a ‘Starla Dixon is a Hungry Hungry Hippo’ Facebook page.

Merle had beaten that boy bloody. It had been worth every minute of the jail time he had received.

_Dad, can you zip me up?_

Twenty seemed awful young to be getting married, but, then again, Merle had been in the army by that age, fully educated in how to kill. Starla’s husband-to-be seemed a little wimpy to Merle, with his skinny jeans and his goofy haircut, but he treated her like a queen. Merle didn’t think he would have to kick that boy’s ass any time soon.

There was no money for a big church wedding. A justice of the peace at Starla’s mother’s house and a quick honeymoon in Branson would have to do. Starla peeped out at Merle from behind her bedroom door. “Where’s Mom?”

“Arguing with that new husband of hers.”

Starla rolled her brown eyes. “Ugh. He’s such a loser. Dad, can you zip me up?” She opened the door and shut it again quickly, not wanting the groom to catch a glimpse of her. Instead of a wedding gown, she wore a lemon yellow summer dress from Fashion Bug. Merle helped her with the zipper. Starla immediately started fussing with her hair. “I had it all perfectly straight, but it’s so humid that it’s going all whacko again.” She tugged at a springy curl. “Why did I get your hair instead of Mom’s? It’s so unfair.”

“Shut up. You’re beautiful.”

“You shut up, old man.” Starla shoved him playfully.

It had been a perfect day. Merle hadn’t had any problem staying sober.

It was the last good day.

_“Dad, I’m scared.”_

“I know, baby. Just come home.”

But the phones stopped working and Starla and her new husband never came back from Branson.

_Dad, can you zip me up?_

It used to be bad memories that made Merle want to cloud his mind with drugs and alcohol. Now it was the good memories that hounded him, and there was no forgetfulness to be found.

_Dad._


End file.
